


Spooky Scary Vampires

by hallow777



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Halloween, Witch!Laura
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 06:56:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8276839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallow777/pseuds/hallow777
Summary: In the small magic town of Silas, it was tradition for witches and wizards to have a "Familiar Ceremony" on their fifth birthday so that they can summon their own familiar to help them as they start classes at the town's magic school.
Everyone in the town of Silas had some degree of magical ability so everyone had a familiar even if their power was only strong enough to summon an object instead of a real living animal of some sort. 
Never in the entire history of Silas had someone not being able to summon something during their ceremony.
At least, there wasn't until little Laura Hollis came along.
AKA the one where Laura is absolutely sure that a certain giant black cat is her familiar while Carmilla is absolutely sure there is no way in hell she is a witch's familiar.





	1. Laura Hollis Age 5 (and a couple months)

**Author's Note:**

> I got hit by the Halloween bug. Plus I needed a break from the massive Carmilla fanfic I'm plotting out now.

The forest was rather lively tonight, trees and bushes rustling with creatures that fell silent as a black blur ran past on all four legs.

There was something in the back of her mind telling her that maybe something wasn’t quite right with the forest right now but she’d already decided she would take her chances with whatever was lurking in the forest as long as she didn’t have to spend another minute in Maman’s company.

Carmilla had spent over three hundred years at this point with Maman but in the last few months she found that she couldn’t stand to be around her. She had to get away.

And so she ran at the first opportunity she had, taking off away from the city they were currently staying and heading into the forest.

Even once she got to the forest she didn’t stop until she was so deep in she didn’t know if she would ever get out.

Everything was dark and quiet now, the rustle and chatter of creatures long gone and it would have been just perfect if the literal hairs all over her body weren’t currently standing on edge.

Something was  _off_ about this place.

Things were quiet here but up ahead she could see a bit of light and movement along with a whiff of something she couldn’t quite place.

It was like gunpowder mixed with something sweet.

It was certainly odd. Odd enough to warrant checking out.

Carmilla crept closer to the light but even though she couldn’t quite see through the trees just yet she could see that she was getting closer to a clearing and suddenly she was able to identify the smell.

Or at least, most of it.

The smell she thought was gunpowder was the acrid smell of magic in the air. The sweet aspect though still remained a mystery.

Had this been any other time, Carmilla would have walked away because honestly witches and wizards were just a pain to deal with but she was just itching for a fight today. She couldn’t exactly take out her aggressions on her mother so whatever happened to be in the clearing would have to do.

She crouched down on her hind legs, ready to spring forward through the clearing at the unsuspecting magic user and catch them off guard but as soon as she pushed off and broke through the clearing she ended up stumbling as she tried to stop herself from ramming straight into the 3 foot nothing girl standing in the clearing.

She may have been looking for a fight but she had standards. She was not going to attack a little girl. Witch, or not.

Mattie had once said that witches and other magic people could always sense when a vampire was around even before they knew what magic really was so Carmilla was fully expecting the girl to immediately run away or at the very least try to hit her with a spell but the girl just stood there, looking at her with wide brown eyes.

And then, before Carmilla could push backwards through the bushes she had just came through to get out of there, the girl opened her mouth.

“Are you my familiar?”

_Her what now?_

“-cause I’ve been trying to summon one for a while now but it hasn’t happened yet. Daddy says that I’m just not ready yet but I see the way the rest of the town looks at me. They think there’s something wrong with me so I’ve been practicing here on my own and then you appeared!”

So admittedly, Carmilla didn’t really know much about witches and other non-vampire related magic in general but she was pretty sure familiars were typically birds or cats.

Or really any other _small_ animal.

Not giant black panthers that were literally taller than the witch herself. By a few inches, at least.

Carmilla took a step back but the girl took a step forward, determination clear in her eyes and Carmilla knew she wasn’t going to just be able to run away from this.

Time to crush a little girl’s hopes and dreams and score herself a nice clearing to relax in before she inevitably had to go back to Maman.

Before the girl could get any closer, Carmilla was suddenly engulfed in black smoke and then she was standing on two legs again, looking down at the truly tiny girl.

“Sorry kid, but I’m just a vampire.”

For the full effect, Carmilla made sure to show off her fangs once she revealed what she was causing the girl’s mouth to fall open in shock. “Now, get out of here so I can enjoy my night in peace.”

The girl stared at her for a few more seconds before her nose wrinkled up into an adorably angry expression. “You can’t do that, I was here first! This is my spot.”

Carmilla let out a groan that quickly turned into a growl, “get out of here.”

The girl took a step back at the sound but then held her ground, offering up a meek, “maybe we could share?”

Carmilla had never really prided herself on being a patient person so that was all it took for her to snap. In seconds, she was back in her animal form and leaping towards the girl who finally got the hint and took off screaming through the woods.

She ran and ran, never daring to look back behind her to see if the vampire was still chasing her though really, Carmilla had given up chasing her once she was far enough away from the clearing she had claimed.

She may have been little but she knew her way around that forest and knew exactly where she was going so it didn’t take her long to break through the line of trees into her backyard.

Right into the arms of a man.

“Oh thank god you are okay!” The man hugged her for a few minutes before setting her on the ground and kneeling so he was eye level with her.

“Laura Eileen Hollis, you know better than to go into those woods! What were you thinking?”

Laura mumbled something about getting lost on accident and though her father didn’t quite believe that she had gotten lost in the middle of the night when she was supposed to be sleeping, he let it go for now and led her back into the house and back into bed.

That night, both of them laid in bed away for a good while before finally falling asleep.

One lay in bed planning out a full course safety lecture for tomorrow and wondering who he could talk into making charm or spell that would keep Laura out of the forest.

The other lay in bed thinking about giant black cat vampire familiars.


	2. Laura Hollis Age 6

**Age 6:**

“Hey look, it’s Lonely Laura with no familiar! Haha!”

Laura’s little hands balled up into fists by her side as the boy who was her age but still taller than her pointed and laughed.

“I do have one! And she’s a cat so she’d eat your tiny little bird for a snack, Micheal!”

“Oh yeah? Where is she then? I don’t believe you, Liar Hollis. Liar Hollis. Liar Hollis.”

Micheal taunted, hopping around like he was dancing and pointing at Laura who was getting more and more irritated by the minute. As her emotions grew, Micheal’s familiar who had been perched on his shoulder flapping her wings around in time with his taunts suddenly stopped her little dance and stood to attention. She could feel the magic in the air.

Unfortunately, before Laura got some well deserved justice on the boy, a teacher walked up and put a stop to their would-be fight, sending them off to opposite sides of the playground.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened and wouldn’t be the last.

* * *

  
**Age 6 and a couple months:**

“Mr. Hollis, may I talk to you for a moment before you pick Laura up?” Laura heard her teacher say just as she had rounded a corner, heading outside to meet her father.

“Uh, sure. Is something the matter?”

“Inside the office, please.”

Luckily neither of them had seen her standing at the end of the hallway as they entered the room so as soon as the door was shut she rushed over and pressed her ear to the door.

“I’m just a little concerned about Laura.”

“Why?” Laura could hear the hesitant tone in his voice. He already had a fairly good idea what this was about.

“I think you know why, Mr. Hollis. Laura has done well in her classes so far but when school starts back up after summer break, she will be learning more advanced magic with the rest of her class. Magic that relies on your bond with your familiar. I don’t think that she will be able to continue.”

Tears were stinging the corners of her eyes even though this wasn’t the first time she had caught her teachers saying similar things.

“Please, can’t you at least let her continue until she can’t go any further? At least give her that chance?”

“Would that be what is best for her though? To allow her to struggle from this point on in something she will never be able to do? As a teacher, that seems rather cruel.”

“I don’t know. But she's a smart girl, she wouldn’t just accept anyone telling her she can’t continue at this school. She would want to know why and it will just shatter her so please, just let her try. At least for now. Maybe by the time she starts struggling I’ll have a better plan.”

Her father was begging now and she could hear the teacher sigh. “Okay. She can continue for now. I’ll talk to the other teachers and let them know but Mr. Hollis? We hate to see people leave Silas but it maybe for the best to consider moving to the city so that she can live a non-magic life. She’s young enough now that in time, she would forget about all this. Without a familiar, she won’t be able to do any magic jobs as an adult. She will likely have to seek employment outside of our town anyway.”

Sherman didn’t say anything but Laura could hear footsteps heading towards the door so she quickly took off down the hallway and out another side door so it would look like she had been waiting for her father outside all along.

She was not going to give up. She was going to show everyone that they were wrong.

* * *

 

**Age 6 and 3/4ths:**

Summer vacation had ended, school had started up again and Laura was not having a good time. She loved learning about magic but it was hard now, without a familiar.

It didn’t help that it had been more than a year since she had seen that giant black cat familiar.

She was starting to think maybe she had imagined it. Maybe everyone was right, maybe she didn’t have a familiar after all.

She couldn’t give up though, no matter how hard it was. She was not going to let them have to move out of the city. She was not going to forget about magic.

So, she took to spending part of her nights out in the forest again. Practicing over and over though this time, it was usually the spells they were working on in class, not the summoning spell she used to practice out here.

Fall was quickly turning cold though so Laura was spending quite a bit of time using magic to make herself a little hut in that same clearing so she wouldn’t be as exposed to the elements come winter time.

The magic they were currently learning at school involved connecting with your familiar, using their magic to make things happen that were well above the magic level of your typical six year old but the school thought it was important for them to learn early on how to tap into that power even if they wouldn’t be able to go through with such complicated spells fully.

And unfortunately, without that connection, Laura was on her own. She had to use her own power and it just wasn’t working out for her but one of her teachers had suggested focusing more on the spells she could do at her level to try and make her power stronger.

So far, it hadn’t seemed to actually help out with her studies for school but it did give her an excuse to put a lot of effort into her little hut.

Laura had always felt at peace here in the forest, surrounded by all the living things whether it be animals or plant life. It was always calm and safe except, of course, for that one run in with a vampire that she may or may not have imagined.

Power flowed through the tall trees around the clearing and she couldn’t stand the thought of harming them to make boards for her hut so she went about things a little bit differently.

It took some time, probably a lot more time than if she had just enchanted boards to form themselves into a hut, but carefully she coaxed the trees into bending themselves above the clearing so that they could still live but they provided a solid roof and walls for her with only a small opening on one side.

This kind of stuff? She was good at. There were kids in her class that still struggled to lift a piece of paper magically but she had never had a problem relying on her own magic to do things like this even if she could only do a little bit at a time.

It was just when she was supposed to be relying on her familiar that she ran into troubles.

She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t.

Magic was such a huge part of her life, there is no way she could move off to a city where she knew she would be forbidden to use any kind of magic.

She just couldn’t give up.

* * *

 

It was raining. Of course it was.

It just had to be raining on the exact day that she was allowed some free time to do whatever she wanted without Maman constantly demanding her attention and obedience.

The universe must really hate her.

Soaked earth squelched under her paws as she darted through the forest. It had been a while since she had been back to this forest and back to the large city that was located far off to one side of it.

There wasn’t anything special about that city for her at least. Maman seemed to have taken a liking to it though. At least she still got to enjoy the forest. There was just something about that forest.

It was calming, peaceful. When there weren’t any mini witches taking up the good clearings, that is.

Carmilla found herself briefly wondering if maybe that same little witch would be there again but then shook the thought from her head. It was pouring down rain and that had been over a year ago.

Plus she had probably scared the girl so much she would never set foot into the forest again.

That clearing from before was just up ahead and she was pretty sure she remembered some large trees around there so she headed straight toward it. Hopefully one of the trees would be big enough to shield her from the rain.

Carmilla stepped through the line of bushes surrounding the clearing and was halfway expecting the girl to be there anyway but what she was absolutely not expecting was to be face to face with a giant tree wall.

_What the frilly hell…_

It was like the trees had been pushed all together until they molded into a wall that stretched up, eventually meeting trees on the other side to make a roof.

It was honestly pretty to look at but it would be a lot prettier to look at if rain wasn’t pouring down and sliding into her eyes..

Carmilla paced around the edge of the wall, getting ready to just tear through a part of it to get in when she finally found an opening that she was able to slip through.

Luckily for her, the inside was as nice and dry as she thought it would be.

And maybe the universe didn’t hate her after all because while someone had clearly been spending time here and the place reeked of magic, no one was there now so Carmilla made herself at home.

There was one branch coming out of the wall a good few feet off the ground randomly but Carmilla didn’t think about it too much and decided it would make a good place to drape her soaking wet clothes over so they could dry. She may have spent most of the time in the rain as a panther but she was still soaked when she changed back.

Once her clothes were draped over the branch and slowly dripping dry, Carmilla made her way over to where a couple blankets were thrown into a corner and wrapped herself up in them.

This little hut was weird and the magic smell had her on a little edge but eventually Carmilla found herself drifting off into the most peaceful sleep she had had in a very long time.


End file.
